The Ebola outbreak in West Africa, first reported in March 2014, and believed by scientists to have started in late December with the death of a 2-year-old boy, thought to have contracted the virus from bats in the remote Guinean village of Meliandou, has rapidly become the deadliest occurrence of the disease since its discovery in 1976.

The current epidemic sweeping across West Africa has now killed more than all other known Ebola outbreaks combined. Over 9,000 people had been reported as having died from the disease in six countries; Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, the US and Mali. The total number of reported cases is more than 23,000. Whilst numbers are in decline in Liberia, the epidemic is still continuing in Sierra Leone and Guinea.

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa, first reported in March 2014, and believed by scientists to have started in late December with the death of a 2-year-old boy, thought to have contracted the virus from bats in the remote Guinean village of Meliandou, has rapidly become the deadliest occurrence of the disease since its discovery in 1976.

The current epidemic sweeping across West Africa has now killed more than all other known Ebola outbreaks combined. Over 9,000 people had been reported as having died from the disease in six countries; Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, the US and Mali. The total number of reported cases is more than 23,000. Whilst numbers are in decline in Liberia, the epidemic is still continuing in Sierra Leone and Guinea.